⁵When a complex machine or process with many shutdown sensors automatically shuts down, it may be difficult to discern after the fact which shutdown device was responsible. For instance, imagine an engine-powered generator automatically shutting down because one of the generator’s “trip” sensors detected an under-voltage condition. Once the engine shuts down, though, multiple trip sensors will show abnormal conditions simply because the engine is not running anymore. The oil pressure sensor is one example of this: once the engine shuts down, there will no longer be any oil pressure, thus causing that alarm to activate. The under-voltage alarm falls into this category as well: once the engine shuts down, the generator will no longer be turning and therefore its output voltage must be zero. The problem for any human operator encountering the shut-down engine is that he or she cannot tell which of these alarms was the initiating cause of the shutdown versus which of these alarms simply activated after the fact once the engine shut off. An annunciator panel showing both an under-voltage and a low oil pressure light does not tell us which event happened first to shut down the generator. A “first-event” (sometimes called a “first-out”) annunciator, however, shows which trip sensor was the first to activate, thus revealing the initiating cause of the event.